Maggie Gallagher is President of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy and a co-author of The Case for Marriage.

As an early-forties mom, she is beginning to regret the children that she never had. She always wanted four, but career and life left her with two.

Several books on Maggie’s reading list echo the point. "American women (like me) born in 1960 wanted an average of 2.3 children, but we actually had just 1.9 children, not enough to replace ourselves."

With all the career pressure, money pressure, and feminist pressure, Maggie makes this statement:

"Amid all the doubts and worries young women face when it comes to combining not just work, but life and family, too few forces stand up for the seemingly senseless inner voice inside married women that says: I want (another) baby. It makes no economic sense. It won’t help my career. It’s enormously inefficient.